1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a wire accommodation protector for holding multiple wires laid therethrough that are routed inside an automobile and other apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wiring components of automobiles conventionally have a multiplicity of routed wires laid though and held within a wire accommodation protector. The wires are secured at suitable locations to protect the wires from external members that might otherwise interfere with the wires and restrict the routing of the wires.
JP H06-70415U discloses a wire accommodation protector that comprises a generally trough-shaped protector body and a lid that covers the top opening of the protector body. Wires are laid through the protector body. The lid then is secured to the protector body via a locking mechanism that protrudes from the sidewalls of the protector body. Thus, the protector can hold the multiplicity of wires therethrough.
Wire accommodation protectors having the foregoing conventional structure suffer from an inherent problem. In particular, the locking mechanism protrudes out from sidewalls of the protector body and inevitably sacrifices some of the capacity of the wire accommodating portion of the protector body. More particularly, assume that an allowable space A is given to dispose a wire accommodation protector 2, as schematically shown in FIG. 6. The wire accommodation protector 2 has a protector body 4 with sidewalls 5 that must be shifted inward by the space required to fit the locking mechanism 6 protruding out from the sidewalls 5 of the protector body 4 (α×2). This creates dead space in regions a below the locking mechanism 6 and in the areas not occupied by the locking mechanism 6, thus detrimentally reducing the accommodating space C inside the protector body 4.
The demand for downsizing automobiles has been growing in recent years while the quantity of on-vehicle electrical equipment has also been increasing. Accordingly, there is a need to increase the accommodating space inside the protector body without enlarging the allowable accommodating space A for mounting the wire accommodation protector. At times, the conventionally structured wire accommodation protector 2 has been unable to meet this requirement sufficiently. In particular, there have been cases in which the lid 8 could not easily interlock with the protector body 4 because there were too many wires for the capacity of the wire accommodation protector 2.
The invention has been made in the light of the above-described circumstances and, as a solution to the problem, provides a wire accommodation protector with a novel structure that can reduce the dead space associated with the entire protector, thereby maximizing the space for accommodating wires inside the protector body.